K.Mandla's blog of Linux experiences

Once more, for old time’s sake

Edit: Unfortunately, the images originally included in this post are gone, because of hosting problems in late 2009. My apologies.

For the past couple of nights I’ve been remaking the fbpanel configurations I used to create the fake Gnome Ubuntu desktop. Here’s another screenshot, in case those have also disappeared off the photo hosting service.

These configuration files are not as comprehensive as the first ones, but those are gone into the infinity, so if you’re after the files (like the one or two e-mails a month that ask for them), these will have to do.

The top bar, generally running at around 1024 pixels across (the system tray should stretch to take up extra space). Note that the Applications menu is the fbpanel “system” menu; if you want something closer to Gnome, you’ll have to build it yourself. I also didn’t include the networking icons, and the newer Gutsy icons. And I also expect you to dig in and further customize these to your liking. Most of the buttons just punch up a terminal.

And there you have it. Don’t forget to customize it to the software you have installed; I use emelFM2 and Sakura a lot; you’ll probably want to change to the software you use (of course! 🙄 ). And if your screen size differs, you’ll probably want to correct that. And if you want different icons, you’ll have to change that. And so forth, and so on. What I’m trying to say is, these aren’t something you can just drop in and run with. You have a little editing ahead of you.

And there still doesn’t seem to be an option to run without a icon. So I couldn’t duplicate the iconless “Place” and “System” menus. Oh well.

The next obvious step is to carve the Openbox right-click menu down to the two or three entries that the Gnome desktop menu has, and add a few desktop icons. iDesk might do the trick for you. Then find acceptable Ubuntu Gnomish wallpaper, maybe a GTK2 theme, cursor theme, and you should be close to done. But all that is up to you. 😉

fbpanel is the only panel utility I know of that can run two at a time — one at the top and one at the bottom. it’s much more flexible that you would guess from looking at these pictures — if you want something very GTK that can do transparency, etc., fbpanel might interest you.

On the other hand, this is old-school Linux: You have to hand-edit almost everything there. And fbpanel isn’t very forgiving if you make a code mistake.

It looks like the author(s) are working on some sort of on-the-fly configuration. That would be a blessing, but it’s worth noting that lxpanel has already built that on to fbpanel. So I wouldn’t suggest waiting for a release of fbpanel if you want easier customization; lxpanel is basically the same thing, and is much easier to handle.

Regardless, lxpanel doesn’t want to run two-at-a-time like fbpanel does, so if it’s the fake-o Gnome desktop you’re after, I believe fbpanel is the only one that can do it.

Thanks. I hunted around quite a bit to find a tip on running two panels. But one thing is missing — how do you NAME the second panel? I can’t have two files with the same name in the .fbpanel folder. I’ve tried several names for the second panel, logged out and back in, and still don’t have a second panel.